Critique a newbie

[Sagoana]

I'm new here and also new in photoshop, so please be gentle. Here are my before and afters:

http://www.flickr.com/photos/5545906...03/5142641052/
http://www.flickr.com/photos/5545906...n/photostream/

[Boneappetit]

Hi Sagoana: You are brave, to start retouching with a portrait like this. It is a very difficult work for a starter to retouch this photo... For a starter you did a very nice job there, a bit dark for my taste thou, but at the same time getting a nice color for this model is very hard, besides there is almost no texture to work with. I used the same portrait to retouch, and it gave me a hard time, here is a link in case you want to take a look at it... This site (RP) has a lot of great info about retouching. Keep up the good work...
http://boneappetit.deviantart.com/gallery/#/d311qz3

[Sagoana]

Thank you very much for your advice, indeed this site is very useful and i think i'm gonna learn a lot from you guys. Thank you again.

[AdobeAndrew]

I think you did a good job of tweaking the skin tone so her face isn't as oily and tan. The area around the eyes is a little bit dark and it sort of changes the feel of the picture when compared to the original but overall good job!